


Aftermath

by RadioactivePaws



Series: Heathers One Shots [5]
Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post canon, college universe, kind of i mean its aftr high school, uhhh this is kinda short but u kno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26907490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioactivePaws/pseuds/RadioactivePaws
Summary: How is Veronica handling the start of college after everything that happened? Is she coping? Is she surviving?This is just post canon Veronica having some feelings.a lil one shot for mij-sketches aka mijellaneous on tumblr~
Series: Heathers One Shots [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1391932
Kudos: 14





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> AH ok so this was kind of quickly typed out and I have many mixed feelings about how Veronica would handle things in canon so if this feels a little disjointed, it's cuz that's how it is in my brain sldgjdskgd but! i hope you like it Mij!

_Dear Diary,_

_Maybe going to a college so far away from everything wasn’t as good of an idea as I thought. Martha calls me all the time, Heather and Heather visit when they can, but otherwise I’m just here alone._

_Maybe that’s what I deserve._

_It’s only been a month into this semester, one month and I already feel myself slipping._

_I miss her._

_After JD, they all left me. I didn’t miss Kurt and Ram’s rambling, they were a guilty stone in my gut but I didn’t miss them hanging around._

_I thought I’d miss him. I mean, I did miss him but not like this._

_Not like I miss her._

_I don’t know what to do._

Veronica rubbed at her face, wincing when she felt the tell tale signs of dried tears on her cheeks. She never really knew when she was crying anymore, it happened so often when she was alone.

Thankfully she had her own little apartment so no one else had to witness her nightly breakdowns. Her parents wanted the best for her and when she asked for a private place to stay, they volunteered to find a way to pay for it. So now she burrowed into solitude.

After the bomb, she’d gone through the rest of the year as best she could. Her friends helped, the Heathers coming around and having Martha with her so much really kept her moving forward. Everyday was a little battle to get up and go but she could do it, they believed in her and so she could do it.

It also helped that she had boxed up all those emotions from what had happened and tossed them to the back of her mind. She never really confronted things.

Then they left. After JD, the boys had left pretty immediately. Only a few days and Kurt and Ram were gone. JD had only popped up here and there, in her periphery, but then he stopped showing up too.

Heather never spoke after JD died but she stayed, for weeks she stayed.

Then one morning, Veronica woke up and no one was there. That day she really almost gave up.  
There was something different about the guilt for Heather. Whether it was the reality of who she was and who she could have been that she learned after her death, or the fact that Chandler really had been her best friend, even if she didn’t want to admit it back then. 

She wasn’t sure, really, but Heather leaving her hurt worse than all the others.

Veronica shuddered as her heart lurched, memories of dumb dates at the 7-11 with JD and inside jokes whispered with Heather flashing in her mind.

So many things went wrong, so many moments she wished she could go back and change. If she could save them, if she could change the past, she’d do it in a heartbeat.

Sobs wracked her as she slid down from her chair, curling in on herself on the floor. Her arms wrapped around her legs, pulling them in tight as she shook and buried her face against her knees.

Everything just hurt.

\----

_Dear Diary._

_I think I’m losing my mind._

Veronica leaned against the window, the bus jostling her against it, and traced her eyes along the sidewalk as they passed.

Weeks had passed, classes and late night tears blurring time together. She’d barely reached out to anyone lately, Martha’s calls usually going unanswered and visits from the Heathers being turned down.

She couldn’t face them. Not like this.

Those boxes that she’d put all her bad feelings after everything had been opened and she couldn’t seem to close them up again. She’d been a mess the rest of senior year but it was a contained mess, one she didn’t fear showing her friends.

The mess she was currently, however, was terrifying.

There was a hollowness to her, an ache that sat bone deep that she couldn’t seem to shake. Everything felt fake, her motions on autopilot, and then she’d get to her room and everything broke inside of her.

Veronica didn’t really know how she could keep crying after so long. Each night seemed to prove her idea that she’d cried every tear contained out of her body wrong. Sobbing had become a pastime, the need to cry out for them to come back was always resting in her chest.

Death couldn’t be fixed so easily, though, and her wishes always went unanswered.

As the streetlight flashed past her, Veronica could almost picture them.

JD dancing with her in the rain, laughing and spinning like they weren’t killers. As if they were just the kids they should have been then. The way he’d mess up her hair and then use the opportunity as a way of getting her a gift as a silly little apology.

Heather rolling her eyes but unable to hide a smile as Veronica showed up at her locker, fixing her blazer with a little click of her tongue before she led the way to class. The way she’d whisper teasing things to Veronica, making sure it was something just between them, as if she were important.

Cracks formed in her heart as she thought of these little moments. The times she would cherish forever, the ones she feared ever letting go. If she forgot those moments, she would lose them. They would really be gone.

One day she might forget what Heather looked like, what JD’s laughter sounded like. She couldn’t handle forgetting them.

Grief claws at her, a thick lump in her throat forming the closer to her apartment they got. A numb sensation settled in as she stumbled off the bus, wandering into her building without paying much attention to her surroundings.

As she reached her floor, her eyes caught sight of something that made her heart thud painfully in her chest.

Blonde hair flashed around the corner, a red ribbon keeping it held back in a ponytail. No other features registered as the figure kept walking, disappearing from her gaze.

She was there. She had to be.

Veronica ran. 

Her legs thundered down the hall in a beat that matched her heart, everything feeling heavy as she rounded the corner and frantically searched. 

Laughter chimed from around the next turn and she kept going towards it. Towards where her apartment sat and where she hoped to find Heather. She had to be there.  
As she reached the corner and turned, a thick mixture of disappointment and relief slammed into her chest.

Before her stood Heather and Heather, both obviously waiting for her, and McNamara’s blonde hair was held back by a red ribbon. Something broke in her chest as they looked at her, mirrored expressions of confusion and worry sparking something in her that she’d been missing.

“Veronica? We came to visit, you haven’t been answering so we got worried. Martha couldn’t come this time but she can next time.” McNamara’s voice sounded muffled, so far away even as Veronica stepped closer. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she let herself collapse into Heather’s arms and she cried.

Veronica let it all go. Her hands clutched at McNamara’s top desperately, sobs hiccuping in her throat as she tried to bury into the feeling of being held like something so precious. Heather’s arms cradled her against her chest like she were afraid Veronica might crumble completely in her hands.

“It’s alright, hey, I’ve got you.” Heather mumbled as Duke unlocked the door and led them all inside. 

They didn’t question her much after that. Instead, they took her to the couch, McNamara holding onto her while Duke made a little nest for them to settle into.

No one spoke for a while, the girls seeming to understand what Veronica needed. They didn’t know everything, wouldn’t know it all, but she’d soak up all the comfort they could provide while they were there.

When they left the next afternoon, both seeming to want to linger for longer, Veronica waved them off.

Her batteries felt recharged, her heart soothed just enough. Seeing them was like a bandaid, it wouldn’t keep everything together but it would keep long enough for her to try to figure something out.

The wind blew past her through the window and a memory of Chandler’s ghost came unbidden to her mind. The feeling she’d had when Heather had set a hand on her shoulder one night, when she’d been telling Veronica little secrets about herself.

When she’d fractured something deep within Veronica that could never be fixed.

“You know I could have been great. I wanted to do so much, Ronnie. I wanted to study law, and I wanted to help people. You may have just seen the bitch but I could be so much more, I was so much more.”  
Her voice had trailed off and her hand moved to Veronica’s shoulder, gripping her in a way that showed her anger and grief. A way that Veronica could never forget.

“I wanted so much for you too, Veronica. You failed my loyalty test, failed me so badly. I’d wanted so much and now I can’t have anything. Now,” She’d laughed, a broken sound that gurgled in her throat, always so thick with poison. “I just get to suffer. I’m dead and that can’t be fixed with a little bit of begging.”

Heather spoke with her so often. Telling her these bits and pieces that just pushed Veronica towards the knowledge that she’d been a part of killing people who were too young to die.

The memories fueled her this time, though. 

This time she could do something. Instead of curling up on the floor, she went to her books. As she wiped away tears, she tried to focus so she could study.

Law school wasn’t for her but she could still help people like Heather aimed for. Her psychology tests sat scattered around her desk as she tried to get her thoughts together.

\----

_Dear Diary,_

_Maybe I’m not doing so great. Maybe I should get some help. Maybe I should just keep moving forward._

_Heather would kick my ass if she saw how I was handling things now. JD… I’m not so sure how he’d react after everything._

_I think I need to fix this. I’ll never be able to forgive my mistakes, not completely, but if I can live with them then maybe it’ll be okay. If I can help stop these things from happening to other people, maybe just living with them will be enough._

_Maybe I can be okay._

_Eventually._

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all, i'm taking questions abt this AU, my other Heathers works, and some one shot requests at my tumblr hheatherchandlerr


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